Prof. Esposito, a member of the discussion panel, shares his thoughts after the Penelopiad. Photo taken by CC 102 student, Amanda Crumpton.

The Penelopiad turned out to be as interesting and multi-layered as we had expected, attracting about 35 Core students and many more theater fans!

Following the events of the Odyssey from the female perspective, the play interwove the voice of Penelope and the voices of her twelve maids who are killed in the end at Odysseus’ command. It asked questions left unspoken at the first reading of the Odyssey, and certainly made a lasting impression on the audience.

Prof. Steve Esposito was a member of the discussion panel and shared his insights with the rest of us, emphasizing how:

the girls playing the twelve maids had such energy that they were a huge driving force in the engine of this play. Seeing this production made me realize the importance of their voice, and how , due to the shallowness of one’s reading, the importance of their murder is often lost when first reading the Odyssey. I will be sure to focus on this more when I next teach the text.

The Core would like to thank Prof. Kyna Hamill for organizing such a fantastic event!

A woman who expends her energy, who has responsibilities, who knows how harsh is the struggle against the world’s opposition, needs — like the male — not only to satisfy her physical desires but also to enjoy the relaxation and diversion provided by agreeable sexual adventures.

— French existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, from The Second Sex: Woman’s Life Today (pg. 686), a book being studied this spring in the second-semester Core Social Sciences, CC204: Inequality. Prof. Maureen Sullivan will deliver a lecture addressing empirical evidences for gender inequality in the United States, tomorrow, Thursday February 17.

Sexual initiation! Not to be mentioned in our house! . . . I hunted in books, but wore myself out without finding the road. . . . For my schoolteacher the question did not seem to exist. . . . A book finally showed me the truth, and my overexcitement disappeared; but I was most unhappy, and it took me a long time to understand that eroticism and sexuality alone constitute real love.

— French existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, from The Second Sex: Woman’s Life Today (pg. 302), a book being studied this spring in the second-semester Core Social Sciences, CC204: Inequality. Prof. Maureen Sullivan will deliver a lecture addressing empirical evidences for gender inequality in the United States, on Thursday February 17.